JUST A STEP beyond the door of my
log cabin stretches my backyard-six
million acres. As a resident and tax
payer of New York State, I own almost
forty percent of it, and much of the private
part is laced with public trails, canoe routes,
beaches, boat-launching sites, and hunting
and fishing areas.
My backyard is the largest state park in the
United States, and undoubtedly the biggest
tract of wilderness left east of the Mississip
pi. It's almost as vast as the combined acreage
of Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite,
Olympic, Great Smoky Mountains, and
Glacier National Parks!
The Adirondack Park is a country of
cloud-splitting peaks, sunny beaver meadows,
somber spruce forests, fragrant balsam flats,
and trout-blessed streams clear and dark as
bock beer. It is a land of awesome winter
nights, when temperatures hover at 25 below
zero and branches crack and ice rumbles.
In spring it is an exasperating area, en
joyed mainly by blackflies, peepers, and trout
fishermen reeking of insect repellent. Come
autumn, my favorite season, the Adirondacks
rival in brazen beauty any other mountain
group in North America.
This vast Adirondack region is a strong
hold of some 125,000 self-reliant residents
called "natives," still notably pioneerlike in at
titude. They combine Vermont stubbornness
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